Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition

Level 16

Some Notes on Music¹

WHEN THE IMAGINEERS were creating the Star Wars Star Tours attraction at Disneyland, they initially intended the experience to be “realistic.” The audience would hear only the sound of the Starspeeder 3000 and the pilot’s dialogue. However, when they tested the attraction, something didn’t feel right. Without the classic theme by John Williams, the attraction just didn’t seem like “Star Wars,” so the music was added in.

Music brings a lot to any entertainment experience, be it a theme park attraction, movie, or video game. But it also requires a lot of work and coordination between many members of a team, which contributes to the reason music and sound are usually left until late in production. This is a mistake. Sound and music can bring so much to a game that leaving it until to the last minute means missing out on some great design opportunities.

Music and sound in gaming have come a long way in a short time. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, arcade and console programmers had only electronic beeps and boops to play with. Even with those limitations, game creators were able to create some simple but memorable musical themes (or even just jingles) for games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda. Sound advances happened with almost every system; voice synthesizing and MIDI format audio meant that music became more lush. However, game creators ...